• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.13-18
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• 2005

This study was undertaken to investigate the effects of electroacupuncture(EA) on Choksamni(ST36), a well-known acupuncture site, on nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate-diaphorase(NADPH-d), neuropeptide Y(NPY) and vasoactive intestinal peptide(VIP) in the cerebral cortex of spontaneously hypertensive rats(SHR). EA on Choksamni was applied using 2Hz electrical biphasic pulses of 10min, 3 times a week for a total of 10 sessions. Thereafter we evaluated changes in NADPH-d-positive neurons histochemically and changes in NPY and VIP-positive neurons immunohistochemically. The optical density of NADPH-d-positive neurons in the Choksamni group was significantly lower in all areas of the cerebral cortex than in the control group. However, the optical density of NPY-positive neurons in the Choksamni group was similar to that of the controls in most areas of the cerebral cortex, with the exception of the primary motor and visual cortices. The optical density of VIP-positive neurons in the Choksamni group was significantly decreased as compared to the control group in most areas of the cerebral cortex, with the exception of the cingulate cortex. The present results demonstrated that EA on Choksamni changes the activity of the NO system, and that stimulation at the same level, causes selective changes within the peptidergic system in the cerebral cortex of SHR.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.1
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• pp.153-200
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• 1997

In languages such as Japanese, it is very common to observe that short peripheral vowel are completely voiceless when surrounded by voiceless consonants. This phenomenon has been known as Montreal French, Shanghai Chinese, Greek, and Korean. Traditionally this phenomenon has been described as a phonological rule that either categorically deletes the vowel or changes the [+voice] feature of the vowel to [-voice]. This analysis was supported by Sawashima (1971) and Hirose (1971)'s observation that there are two distinct EMG patterns for voiced and devoiced vowel in Japanese. Close examination of the phonetic evidence based on acoustic data, however, shows that these phonological characterizations are not tenable (Jun & Beckman 1993, 1994). In this paper, we examined the vowel devoicing phenomenon in Korean using data from ENG fiberscopic and acoustic recorders of 100 sentences produced by one Korean speaker. The results show that there is variability in the 'degree of devoicing' in both acoustic and EMG signals, and in the patterns of glottal closing and opening across different devoiced tokens. There seems to be no categorical difference between devoiced and voiced tokens, for either EMG activity events or glottal patterns. All of these observations support the notion that vowel devoicing in Korean can not be described as the result of the application of a phonological rule. Rather, devoicing seems to be a highly variable 'phonetic' process, a more or less subtle variation in the specification of such phonetic metrics as degree and timing of glottal opening, or of associated subglottal pressure or intra-oral airflow associated with concurrent tone and stricture specifications. Some of token-pair comparisons are amenable to an explanation in terms of gestural overlap and undershoot. However, the effect of gestural timing on vocal fold state seems to be a highly nonlinear function of the interaction among specifications for the relative timing of glottal adduction and abduction gestures, of the amplitudes of the overlapped gestures, of aerodynamic conditions created by concurrent oral tonal gestures, and so on. In summary, to understand devoicing, it will be necessary to examine its effect on phonetic representation of events in many parts of the vocal tracts, and at many stages of the speech chain between the motor intent and the acoustic signal that reaches the hearer's ear.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.111-129
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• 2012

The integration of products and services is being expanded in both manufacturing and service companies such as in Apple's iPod & iTunes, Amazon's Kindle, and Hyundai Motor Company's Mozen. This phenomenon has recently accelerated due to multiple factors including market change, lessening of differences in quality of products or services, the paradigm of participation and sharing, and deindustrialization and evolution toward becoming a service economy. The objective of this paper is to investigate and analyze the status and characteristics of integration of products and services in Korean firms and to suggest policy directions promoting this integration. Towards this purpose, income statements from the Korea Listed Companies Association (KLCA) database of companies listed on the Korea Stock Exchange are analyzed regarding the servitization of manufacturing firms as well as the productization of service firms. In addition, this research investigates the Korean Innovation Survey 2011 database for the service sector and 2010 database for the manufacturing sector in order to evaluate R&D activity in each. In the manufacturing sector, the average ratio of service sales (servitization) was low at 0.208, with bias in the level and distribution of ratios associated with the manufacturing sector. 18 out of a total of 23 sectors (78%) have low servitization, showing there's a long way to go for servitization in the Korean manufacturing sector. In the service sector, the average ratio of product sales (productization) was 9.53%, which is relatively high compared to that of the manufacturing sector. However, the distribution of ratios is also biased, as with the manufacturing sector. Based on this analysis, policy directions are proposed in terms of 1) R&D, 2) concept boost, 3) R&D result spread, 4) statistics, 5) infrastructure and 6) green growth.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.73-81
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to observe the brain activity patterns during visual oddball tasks with two difficulty levels by the analysis of high-density event-related potential (ERP). Along with conventional statistical analysis of averaged ERP waveforms, we applied independent component analysis (ICA) for the individual, single-trial analysis and verified its effectiveness. We could identify multiple ERP components such as early visual components (P1, N1), and two components which seem to be important task-related components and showed difficulty-dependent variability (P2, P300). The P2 was found around central region at $180{\sim}220ms$, and the P300 was found globally at $300{\sim}500ms$ poststimulus. As the task became difficult, the P2 amplitude increased, and the P300 amplitude decreased. After single-trial ERPs were decomposed into multiple independent components (ICs), several ICs resulting from P2 and P300 sources were identified. These ICs were projected onto scalp electrodes and the projected ICs were statistically compared according to two task difficulties. For most subjects, the results obtained from single-trial/individual analysis using ICA gave the tendencies of amplitude change that are similar to the averaged ERP analysis for most subjects. The temporal pattern and number of ICs corresponding to ${\mu}$ rhythm was not dependent on the task difficulty. It seems that the motor response was not affected by the task difficulty.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.924-928
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• 2006

This study was undertaken to determine the effects of Zusanli(ST 36) electro-acupuncture(EA) on the small intestinal motility in rat. The motor activity of the rat small intestine was evaluated by intestinal transfortation rate. Changes in the motility in vivo of ileum was measured before and 10 minutes after acupuncture. In order to examine whether EA effect was affected by stimulated duration and left or right sides of ST36 acupoint, both of the difference effects of left or right sides on acupoints of ST 36 and the stimulated duration of 10, 20, 30 min. were investigated on the motility in vivo of ileum. These results suggest that effect of Zusanli(ST36) for increasing the small intestinal motility should stimulate more than 20 minutes, left ST36 EA has stronger effect than right ST36 EA.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.355-365
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• 2019

Objectives: In rural areas of Korea, where public transportation infrastructure is lacking and alternative systems are poor, the elderly experience inconveniences in using healthcare, although their need is high. This study aimed to analyze the association between the convenience of transportation and unmet healthcare needs among the rural elderly. Methods: The data used were collected in the 2016 Community Health Survey among rural elderly individuals aged 65 or older. Dependent variable was the unmet healthcare needs, explanatory variable was the convenience of transportation. The elderly were divided into 3 groups: with no driver in the household, with a driver, and the elderly individual was the driver (the self-driving group). Covariates were classified into predisposing, enabling, and need factors. They included gender, age, education, income, economic activity, household type, motor ability, subjective health level, number of chronic diseases, anxiety/depression, and pain/discomfort. The data were analyzed using logistic regression and stratification. Results: A significant association was found between the convenience of transportation and unmet healthcare needs. When examined unadjusted odds ratio of the group with a driver in the household, using the group with no driver as a reference, was 0.61 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.54 to 0.68), while that of the self-driving group was 0.34 (95% CI, 0.30 to 0.38). The odds ratios adjusted for all factors were 0.69 (95% CI, 0.59 to 0.80) and 0.79 (95% CI, 0.67 to 0.91). Conclusions: We confirmed a significant association between inconvenient transportation and unmet healthcare needs among the rural elderly even after adjustment for existing known factors. This implies that policies aimed at improving healthcare accessibility must consider the means of transportation available.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.1472-1479
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability to maintain dynamic posturography(EquiTest) in gymnastic, freestyle skier, and figure skater. A total of 32 subjects(22 athletic woman and 10 collegiate woman) were participated in this study. Computerized dynamic posturography(EquiTest) was adopted to test sensory organization and motor control. EquiTest facilitated the quantification of the role of somatosensory, visual and vestibular systems in the maintenance of postural balance and was also pertinent to measure the reaction time to the stimulus to change center of gravity on force platform. As a result were as follow. There was not difference among with exercise group. But there was a significantly difference with between groups. It was suggested that the acrobatic and physical activity developed the function of visual system and the role of the combination of visual and vestibular system in maintaining postural balance to surrounding stimulus, and presented shorter reaction time in automatic postural response.

• PNF and Movement
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.451-460
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• 2018

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a modified constraint induced movement therapy (mCIMT) using proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) on the upper extremity function and activities of daily living (ADLs) in patients with subacute stroke. Methods: Fourteen participants with subacute stroke were randomly assigned to a group using both mCIMT and PNF or a group using mCIMT alone. Each group underwent twenty sessions (1 h/d, 5 d/wk) for 4 weeks. Patients were assessed with the action research arm test (ARAT), the Fugl-Meyer assessment for the upper extremities (FMA-UE), the Modified Barthel Index (MBI), and motor activity logs (MALs; amount of use [AOU] and quality of movement [QOM]). Results: Both the experimental group and the control group showed significant intragroup improvement in the ARAT, FMA-UE, MBI, and MAL-AOU (p<0.05). The group using both mCIMT and PNF exhibited greater improvement in the ARAT, FMA-UE, MBI, and MAL-AOU than did the group using mCIMT alone. Statistical analyses showed significant differences in the ARAT (p=0.01), FMA-UE (p=0.01), MBI (p=0.00), and MAL-AOU (p=0.01) between the groups. Conclusion: This study applied mCIMT combined with PNF for subacute stroke patients, and the results showed significant improvements in the patients' upper extremity function and ADLs. Therefore, mCIMT using PNF may be more effective than mCIMT alone in improving upper limb function and ADLs in patients with subacute stroke.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.178-184
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• 2019

Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by the progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons within the substantia nigra pars compacta. In the present study, we investigated whether ${\beta}-Lapachone$ (${\beta}-LAP$), a natural naphthoquinone compound isolated from the lapacho tree (Tabebuia avellanedae), elicits neuroprotective effects in a 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP)-induced Parkinson's disease mouse model. ${\beta}-LAP$ reduced the tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-immunoreactive fiber loss induced by MPTP in the dorsolateral striatum, and alleviated motor dysfunction as determined by the rotarod test. In addition, ${\beta}-LAP$ protected against MPTP-induced loss of TH positive neurons, and upregulated B-cell lymphoma 2 protein (Bcl-2) expression in the substantia nigra. Based on previous reports on the neuroprotective role of nuclear factor-E2-related factor-2 (Nrf2) in neurodegenerative diseases, we investigated whether ${\beta}-LAP$ induces upregulation of the Nrf2-hemeoxygenae-1 (HO-1) signaling pathway molecules in MPTP-injected mouse brains. Western blot and immunohistochemical analyses indicated that ${\beta}-LAP$ increased HO-1 expression in glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive astrocytes. Moreover, ${\beta}-LAP$ increased the nuclear translocation and DNA binding activity of Nrf2, and the phosphorylation of upstream adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK). ${\beta}-LAP$ also increased the localization of p-AMPK and Nrf2 in astrocytes. Collectively, our data suggest that ${\beta}-LAP$ exerts neuroprotective effect in MPTP-injected mice by upregulating the p-AMPK/Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathways in astrocytes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.125-137
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• 2021

PURPOSE: The growing number of people exposed to a static sitting posture has resulted in an increase in people with a poor posture out of the optimally aligned posture because of the low awareness of a correct sitting posture. Learning the correct sitting posture by applying sensory feedback is essential because a poor posture has negative consequences for the spine. Therefore, this study examined the effects of the sensory feedback types on learning correct sitting posture. METHODS: Thirty-six healthy adult males were assigned to a visual feedback group, a tactile feedback group, and a visuotactile feedback group to learn the correct sitting posture by applying sensory feedback. The spine angle, muscle activity, and muscle thickness were measured in the sitting position using retro-reflexive markers, electromyography, and ultrasound immediately after, five minutes, and 10 minutes after intervention. RESULTS: The intervention time was significantly shorter in the visuotactile feedback group than the visual feedback group (p < .05). Compared to the pre-intervention, the repositioning error angles of the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae of all groups were reduced significantly immediately after intervention and after five minutes. After 10 minutes, there was a significant difference in the thoracic and lumbar repositioning error angles of the tactile feedback group and the visuotactile feedback group (p < .05). No significant difference was noted at any time compared to the pre-intervention in all groups (p > .05). CONCLUSION: The use of tactile and visuotactile feedback in intervention to correct the sitting posture is proposed.